The clock counted down. With thirty seconds to go, Allie and Jason were fighting for the sweatshirt, Olivia was taking a video game in a fairly uncontested race, and Courtney and Naomi Ryan were in a fierce battle for the SpyGlasses.
Naomi Ryan raised the bid to $10,000, but right at the last second, Courtney raised it to $10,001. Swap’d let out its congratulatory cha-ching sound.
“You got me!” She gave Courtney a high five. “Okay, this is fantastic!” she said to both of them. “How long did you say it took you to build this?”
“About eighteen hours,” Allie said.
“And you collaborated with how many developers?” she asked.
“Three other girls, plus the two of us,” Courtney said.
Naomi looked at Jason, and then at Olivia, as if the three of them were having a silent discussion.
“I think we’re all in agreement about what we should do, aren’t we?” she asked them.
“Absolutely,” Olivia said.
“Total agreement,” Jason said.
Naomi looked at Allie and Courtney. “Do you mind if I sell something?”
“Sure,” Courtney said.
“Of course,” Allie echoed.
Naomi Ryan typed quickly with her thumbs while the rest of them watched in silence. She pressed the START button and said, “Okay, check it out.”
Allie and Courtney looked at their phones and read the description of the item she posted:
Work as a mentor at Spyglass Games this summer! You’ll be part of a small, exclusive team building the company’s first teen-specific hackathon and mentoring participants! Candidates must demonstrate strong leadership skills, and the ability to work quickly and collaboratively. Three positions available.
Allie looked at Naomi Ryan. “A mentor? But we applied to be participants.”
“Rather than participating in the program, we’re inviting you to work closely with our in-house team to help build it. You’d be with us all summer, for eight weeks, and overseeing some of the weekend events. We think our hackathon program needs both of you. What do you think? Can you two handle a whole summer together?”
Allie’s face lit up. Courtney’s did the same.
“That depends,” Courtney said. “Does your lab have gummy worms?”
Jason smiled. “All you can eat.”
“Then we’re in!” Courtney threw her arms around Allie, and the two of them jumped in place.
“We have one more mentor slot to fill,” Olivia said. “Is there anyone you’d recommend?”
Courtney and Allie stopped jumping. They took a step back and smiled at each other.
“Are we thinking the same thing?” Allie asked.
“Yep,” Courtney said. And then they turned to Olivia and, together, they uttered a single name.
Allie knew Nathan’s meet-and-greet was right after hers. She was hoping they’d pass each other so she could pull him aside and tell him what happened, but by the time she spotted him, he was already shaking hands with Naomi Ryan.
She and Courtney decided to walk the show floor and check out the other booths, but they were both in a bit of a daze.
“I think I’m dreaming,” Courtney said.
“In that case, we’re having the same dream. Maybe you should pinch me.”
Courtney pinched her arm.
“Ow!” Allie jerked it away. “Not that hard.”
The two of them spent the next hour stopping at booths, playing games, watching demos, and listening to presentations. Allie kept looking around for Nathan. She couldn’t wait to hear about his meeting.
“I know what we need,” Courtney said. “Follow me.” She turned down an aisle, pointing at a demo station on the far side of the hall. And that’s when Allie spotted Nathan walking right toward them, dodging a big group of people in cosplay. He waved at them.
Allie’s mouth felt dry, her chest felt tight, and her heart was pounding. Why was she so nervous? She wasn’t used to feeling like that around Nathan.
“Hey,” he said. The three of them stood awkwardly in the middle of the aisle, people squeezing past them on either side. “How was it?”
“Amazing!” Allie said. “They loved Swap’d.”
“I got in a war with Naomi Ryan over the SpyGlasses,” Courtney said, puffing out her chest. “And I won. Of course.”
“No way.” Nathan’s eyes grew wider. “You won a pair of SpyGlasses?”
“Well, it was a mock auction, so they were mock glasses. But I still won.”
“How about you?” Allie asked. “How did she like your game?”
“She loved it,” he said. “I have a meeting with the team next week to talk about how we can use it to draw new users to Built.”
“That’s great!”
“Yeah, it is.” Nathan looked like he wanted to say something more, but he left it at that.
“Did you talk about anything else?” Courtney asked him.
Allie was glad Courtney had asked. She was dying to know.
“Yeah, they invited me to be a mentor at Hackathon.” He shot Allie a sideways grin. “But you already know that, didn’t you?”
Allie shrugged. “Not for sure.”
“Naomi told me what you said. Right after I told her you were the one who gave me the idea for the racing game, and that you should get a spot in Hackathon.”
“You recommended me?” Allie asked.
“Of course I did.”
“And I recommended you.”
Nathan nodded. “They all seemed to like the idea that we’d recommended each other. Olivia said it was a good sign that we’d work well together for an entire summer.”
Allie shook her head slowly. “An entire summer with you? What was I thinking?” she joked.
“I have no idea.”
It got quiet again. Allie didn’t know what do with her hands, so she shoved them into her back pockets. Nathan did the same with his. Neither one said anything.
“Well, Nathan,” Courtney finally said, breaking the awkward silence. “The three of us will be spending the summer together. And since I’m Allie’s friend, and you’re Allie’s friend, we should probably get to know each other better.” She pointed at the booth at the far end of the aisle. “Like, I don’t even know how you feel about zombies.”
Nathan followed her gaze. “Oh, that’s easy. I am one hundred percent anti-zombie.”
“Hey. Me too!” Courtney’s face brightened. “Are you any good at killing them?”
“Of course I am. You?”
“The best.”
“Oh, are you, now?”
Allie felt like she was at a Ping-Pong tournament, watching the two of them go back and forth. “Uh-oh,” she muttered.
“I’ll take you on anytime,” Courtney said.
“Now’s good,” Nathan said.
“Come on. We’ll teach you, Allie.”
“Oh, that’s okay. I think I’ll stick to racing games,” Allie said, but it was too late. Courtney was already walking off, leading the way to a dark green booth with huge monitors and a sign that read BRAIN/FOOD.
Nathan hung back. “I like her,” he said.
“I knew you would.”
“Hey . . . I just wanted to say . . .” He rocked back on his heels and combed his fingers through his hair. “Thanks for everything, Gator.”
Allie played with a loose string on her jeans. “Thank you, Nate.”
For a moment, the whole convention center got quiet. The chaos around them—the bright lights, and the low hum of people chattering, and the loud music, and the people pushing past them—all faded into the background, and it was as if it was just the two of them working together in the lab. Helping each other. Competing with each other. Pushing each other to be better. Stuffing popcorn into their mouths. One-upping each other. Laughing at each other’s jokes.
They were a good team. Everything about being with Nathan was easy. And fun. She no longer felt nervous or awkward or weird, because she had no reason to be. He
was just . . . Nate. And now, he was standing there, smiling at her, face full of freckles, red hair all spiky and adorable looking.
Allie tried to play it cool. “Is there a zombie racing game anywhere? Because that I think I could do.”
“Zombie racing?” he asked. “I don’t think so.”
“Well, maybe there should be. The zombies could race each other to the closest town, and whoever gets there fastest gets first pick at the humans.”
“That’s a little dark,” Nathan said as they started walking toward the booth. “I love it.”
“Yeah?”
“Told you. You always have the best ideas.”
“Well you have all the racing code now. It would be easy. We start there. Snap on the leaderboard—”
“Use the avatar builder to make our zombies—” Nathan added.
“We’d need more cars,” Allie said.
“And a lot more zombies.”
“Want to build it together?”
“For what?”
Allie shrugged. “For fun.”
“I’m in.” He held out his hand and Allie shook it. Neither one of them let go right away.
“Helllloo!” Courtney was standing in front of a monitor, waving two game controllers in the air. Allie and Nathan dropped their hands. “I believe you have a game to lose, Nathan.”
“You’re going to eat those words,” he said.
“No, I won’t. I’ll be too busy eating brains.” Courtney handed him the controller. “Watch and learn, Allie.”
The numbers appeared on the screen as the game counted down in green, gooey-looking font.
Allie stood behind them, watching the two of them play. It all felt surreal.
Courtney was there. Nathan was there. It was almost too perfect to be true. And then she looked around the room, taking in the lights and the sounds, enjoying the energy she felt in every corner of the room, feeling like she was exactly where she belonged.
I have had the best time writing these Click’d books, and this one in particular. I think I typed the entire thing with a smile on my face, enjoying every second I got to spend with Allie and her friends.
The people in my publishing world are adults with kidlike hearts. Thank you to my editors, Emily Meehan and Hannah Allaman; copy editor Guy Cunningham; my marketing team, Dina Sherman, Holly Nagel, and Elke Villa; my publicists, Cassie McGinty and Seale Ballenger; and Mary Ann Naples, Sara Liebling, and Therese Ellis. Like many people, I do judge a book by its cover, and I’m especially grateful to designer Mary Claire Cruz and illustrator Jameela Wahlgren for creating covers that so perfectly (and adorably) capture the personalities of the characters you meet in the pages. Finally, thank you to my agent, Caryn Wiseman, for loving my tenacious girl coder when she was just an idea I had while on deadline for a totally different book. I kind of expected her to talk me out of writing Allie’s stories and I’m so glad she didn’t.
Okay, that’s it for the grown-ups. Now I have a bunch of kids to thank.
My son and daughter are a constant source of creative inspiration. The initial idea for Click’d came from a conversation with my daughter, Lauren, and many of these moments in Swap’d came from brainstorming sessions with my son, Aidan. Thank you both for all you do to make my books better. Mostly, thanks for just being who you are and letting me look on with love and absolute awe.
I shamelessly steal many of my story ideas from my kids’ friends, and they know it. Giant-bags-of-candy-size thanks to Alex Karp and Lanie Pritchard, whose entrepreneurial spirits are on full display in this story (details withheld to protect your secret ). Thanks to Maddie McCormick for that time you found your old DS and played Mario Kart for an hour-long ride in my car (I told you I was going to use that!). And thanks to Drew Frady, who will always be part of our family no matter how far away he lives. Here’s to best friends who never let distance keep them apart for long.
I hold all the teen coders out there in such high regard. Thanks for inspiring others by example. Special thanks to Mercer Henderson for all she does to empower young women, but specifically for creating the brilliant closet-sharing app I borrowed here.
Thanks again to the friends who have been early readers, fact-checkers, and all-around great sounding boards on these books, including Ella Thorpe, Leslie Cary, and Hosanna Fuller.
Last but never least, thanks to all my young readers around the world. It is an absolute joy and the honor of a lifetime to write stories for you. Thank you for reading them, for sharing them with your friends, and for telling me when they speak to you. You make my job so much fun.
TAMARA IRELAND STONE writes young adult and middle grade novels. Her New York Times best seller, Every Last Word, won the Cybils Young Adult Fiction Award, the Georgia Peach Book Award, and the Buxtehuder Bulle German Youth Literature Award, and was a YALSA Teens’ Top Ten pick. She is also the author of Little Do We Know, Time Between Us, Time After Time, and the Click’d series.
Before she began writing fiction full-time, Tamara spent twenty years in the technology industry. She cofounded a woman-owned marketing strategy and communications firm, where she worked with small startups as well as some of the world’s largest software companies. When she’s not writing, she enjoys skiing, seeing live music, watching movies, and spending time with her husband and two children. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Visit her at TamaraIrelandStone.com.
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